Derelict For Trade Page 5

  Rael Cofort, from her vantage in the passenger’s seat, looked up at the screen showing the slowly approaching habitat. They were vectoring in along the cylinder’s long axis, straight toward the immense lock yawning at its center, surrounded by a wilderness of metallic complexity thickly forested with antennae and projectors and less identifiable objects. For a moment, dizziness seized her: the lack of scale made the metallic disk seem to suddenly swell to planetary size.

  Rael shook her head to dispel the illusion, and instead saw the complexities of the habitat framed by the clean, plain, almost austere lines of the Queen's control deck. During her years of trading with her brother Teague, she had visited two habitats, one of them Exchange. Each time she’d experienced the same vertigo: somehow, the artificial nature of a habitat made its size more viscerally awesome than any planet. Too, the uncanny silence of their approach was far too suggestive of the most terrifying of all sounds to a spacer: jet failure, which during the usual planetary touchdown almost invariably meant death.

  "Velocity point zero zero eight," said Tang Ya. They were now moving as slowly as a ground vehicle, thought Rael. No, almost at a walk. But the beacon warnings on the way in had been unequivocal: here the speed limit was enforced by death, for despite its size, a habitat was fragile—a ship under full power that went astray could puncture through places that would cause the entire cylome to vent to space.

  Now the disk of the cylindrical habitat’s end cap was a plain of complex metal shapes stretching out to either side, while ahead she could see the docking berths, bright blue-white lights strobing from the one they’d been assigned. Slowly the edges of the immense lock slid past as the habitat swallowed the Solar Queen, and the ship trembled as Captain Jellico triggered the maneuvering thrusters in quick bursts.

  Rael looked around at the Queen's control deck. The contrast between the bristling technology outside the viewscreen and the functional ordinariness of the Queen was symbolic. On Exchange, fabulous technology was the norm—almost a fad. The Kanddoyds had to have the latest, the most complicated, the fastest, whether ships or food preparators. In contrast was Jellico and his crew, who worked with every evidence of contentment using ship technology that in some areas would be seen as outdated, and who lived plainly—as if on a planet—no matter what kind of gravity or environment they found themselves in. It seemed a part of their innate honesty, the straightforward approach to problems, to life, that had attracted her to them in the first place.

  But she wondered how they would endure living in a place like Exchange.

  "This is weird," said Ali, his voice rough. "Being inside like this."

  "No degrees of freedom," agreed Van Ryke.

  And that, thought Rael, was anathema to spacers, and Free Traders in particular.

  A flicker at the edge of her vision caught her attention, and she suddenly realized that the immense space around them was alive with motion: small vehicles of every description and even figures in space suits swarmed around other ships in the huge bay and up into the vast corridors which radiated outward towards heavier-gee areas. They’d been assigned a berth in microgravity.

  Tang Ya suddenly looked up. "General com incoming," he said.

  Jellico gave a single nod. "Put it on."

  Ya tabbed a key, and this time the voice that filled the bridge was a peculiar one, reedy—the kind of voice, Rael thought, a violin would have were it to speak.

  "Welcome, Terrans of vessel Solar Queen, to the cylome graced with the cognomen The Garden of Harmonious Exchange. You will find here representatives of many worlds, far systems and near, conducting their important trade in perfect amity, hosted by three races, the Kanddoyd, the Shver, and the Terrans. Our laws, agreed in the Concord of Harmony between our peoples, can be found on Terran Standard Channel Twenty-seven. We wish, in the friendliest spirit, to draw your attention to those designed for everyone’s safety, foremost being those governing relations between the three species signatory to the Concord."

  "Standard hoo-la," Stotz muttered over the intercom.

  "If you are puzzled, dismayed, astounded, or confounded, we invite you to visit your representative of the Terran Stellar Patrol, Captain-Legate Ross, who resides on level five, domiciled in the Way of the Rain-dappled Lilies."

  Ali gave a sudden laugh. "I think I’m going to like it here."

  "Our representative, Exalted Locutor Taddatak, will indulge himself the inexpressible joy of a visit to your vessel to negotiate the nominal fees that, alas, we must ask of our visitors in order to maintain our splendid facility for your pleasures."

  The voice cut out just as a flurry of booms and clanks announced that the berth had firmly grappled the ship; but so precise had the captain’s piloting been that they came to rest with almost no sense of deceleration.

  "All right, we’re in," the captain said.

  Tang Ya watched his console. "They’re bringing up the dock access tube; Thorson is overseeing the mate—" He frowned as a query light blinked. "It appears that they insist on controlling life support from their end."

  Jellico looked up in question. Rael said, "Standard procedure, as you’ll see when you have time to read their contract. We didn’t like it either, though it turned out to have a benefit we hadn’t planned for: dangerous biota from all three races are automatically filtered out. Our filters weren’t that prepared."

  Jellico turned back to Ya and gave a short nod. The comtech touched the intercom and said, "Go ahead, Thorson."

  A flurry of activity then began, as both the crew of the Solar Queen and the dockside workers made the Queen fast, hooking up each life-support system and checking it before the Queen relinquished control. Once that was completed would begin the age-old process of negotiation for services and fees. Rael Cofort stayed out of the way; this was not her job, though she could help in an emergency. Right now her best help would be not to clutter the paths of the others.

  So she moved toward one of the ports near the outer lock and glanced out. Though the Solar Queen herself was still in vacuum, the berthing equipment included a long tube bent at right angles, connecting the Queen to a lock giving them access into the habitat. Long strips at intervals on the tube were clear, affording her a view of anyone coming or going.

  For a short time suited workers signaled back and forth as each system was locked in, checked, and equalized; then at last the green-go lights flashed. Moments later there was movement in the tube, indicating arrivals. From her vantage she could see the locutor moving toward the Queen at a rapid pace, with two or three minor officials scurrying behind. She glanced up, saw Frank Mura also looking out—and was surprised to see a look of strain on his face.

  Her lips parted, but she repressed the exclamation she’d been about to make. Almost immediately Mura turned away from the port and retreated to his cabin off the galley. She heard the door hiss closed.

  Once again she glanced out, this time trying to see the Kanddoyds with the eyes of a newcomer. They were mammalian beings, bipeds, and they had two arms, two legs, and a head, but there the resemblance between Terrans and Kanddoyds ended. Every centimeter of what would be skin on a human was protected by intersecting layers of chitinous material; the effect was a kind of elaborate armor, augmented by the decorations the beings were so fond of. Their heads were small, well protected by conical, flared chitin rather like a helmet; their carapaces were segmented, and also looked like armor. Not just any armor, but...

  She frowned, reaching back in memory. She’d studied Terran history, and knew she’d seen something rather like the Kanddoyds before.

  She turned away from the port, and her gaze fell by chance on one of the tiny trees Mura nurtured, and suddenly she had it.

  Samurai warriors, ronin—the Kanddoyds looked like armored warriors from the days of Bushido in Japan.

  Rael winced. Frank Mura did not talk about the cataclysm that had destroyed the Japanese islands, homeland of his people for countless generations, but she had studied the effects of
cataclysm on people. They were capable of grieving for generations.

  Should she say anything? No. But she’d watch, and listen.

  Dane wedged himself between the curve of a bulkhead and a wall in the mess. Eleven of the Queen's thirteen were there. Looking around, Dane realized that Steen and Rip had remained on the Starvenger. And this time they weren’t radio-linked with the Queen.

  As if following Dane’s thoughts, Captain Jellico said, "The two who go out to the salvage ship on the next rotation can report to Wilcox and Shannon. I don’t want the comlink used unless there’s an emergency either way. This place has communication technology that we’ve probably never heard of. We don’t know who might be listening in, and why, and there’s no use in finding out the hard way. For now we’ll do our reports in person."

  He paused and looked around. The others all nodded or made murmurs of agreement. Jellico’s hard mouth lost some of its tension as he turned his gaze to Frank Mura.

  The compact, quiet-faced steward said, "I calculated what we have against the latest posted exchange rates, minus the value of Macgregory’s letter, and what it amounts to is this: we can buy ourselves a Terran week or maybe two to resolve our business—if everyone sleeps on board the Queen."

  A couple of people sighed, and Dane grimaced in sympathy. He hated living in microgravity, and made a mental note to find the equivalent of a Kanddoyd public gym—if there was such a thing—down at the one-grav section, so he could work out and not lose his muscle tone. And to eat, if I can, he thought, remembering unfondly how spectacularly messy food spills were in micrograv.

  "I’ll visit the legate and see if there’s a way to shorten this registry process," the captain went on. "What will take all of your ingenuity, Van, is your managing to turn this cargo around."

  Van Ryke smiled broadly. Dane couldn’t help grinning at the blatant anticipation in his superior’s face—the man lived for just such a challenge.

  Jasper Weeks said soberly, "We listened to the entire Concord." He indicated himself and Kosti, who nodded. "From the sound of their regulations and formalities, it’s going to take longer than from here to Terra in hyper jump to get the salvage claim going."

  Jellico nodded. "I know. I heard it out as well. It seems to be the Kanddoyd way—a dozen extra visits for every piece of business, so that no one ever has to say no, and thus everyone saves face. This is why I’m going first to the legate. Ross is here to look out for the interests of Terrans. He ought to be able to tell me how to make this as quick and painless as possible."

  Again there were murmurs of agreement. They’d had some run-ins with the Patrol in the past, but for strange reasons that had eventually been proven not their fault. Even if the Patrol were somewhat rough and ready in their approach to problems, Dane thought, no one had ever accused them of corruption or unfairness.

  "We’re now on dirtside shift schedule," Jellico said. "I’ve posted the rotations to the Starvenger; you’ll each serve, in pairs, forty-eight Standard hours. Off limits are the domiciles of the Shver and Kanddoyds—stay in the Exchange areas. Also, stay away from the warehousing areas of the Spin Axis. Dr. Cofort?" He turned suddenly to the woman. "Explain?"

  Rael Cofort said, "You won’t find any mention of this in the official tapes, but there’s a lawless element living up there. Apparently even the Monitors of Harmony, which is what they call their peace enforcers, don’t go up there—at least the Kanddoyd ones don’t go. The Shver arm of the Monitors do, but that’s to keep an eye out for the Deathguard, which is a very dangerous gang of Shver outcasts who make their living through hiring out as assassins. There are other kinds of outcasts there as well, and my brother told me once that high-caste Shver sometimes go hunting the denizens there, for sport, and no one does anything about it. The Kanddoyds just pretend the area doesn’t exist."

  "So this supposed Harmony is a sham?" Mura asked, frowning.

  Cofort shook her head. "Oh, it’s stable enough—at least when we came here before, there had apparently never been any major trouble since the Concord was first hammered out. And the Kanddoyds are very friendly beings. The Shver are rather different."

  "The Shver are all right if you respect their customs and stay out of their personal space," Van Ryke said. "But you’ve got to remember that at the other end of their sphere of influence they are still conquering worlds as a solution to their population problems."

  Jellico’s glance came back to rest, as if by chance, on Ali. "Get in their way—say something they don’t like—and you’ve got a duel on your hands. They’ve channeled their aggressions into hunting for outlaws at the Spin Axis, and into formalized duels, but those aggressions are still there." He paused, then said, "Any other questions?"

  No one spoke.

  Jellico nodded. "Those scheduled for leave time can depart now. I’ll see if the Terran legate can get us moving on the paperwork faster. Doctor, if you’d go with me and show me how to get around?"

  "Gladly, Captain," Cofort said.

  They left.

  Dane looked across at Ali, who gave a little sigh. Dane wasn’t fooled. Ali seemed incapable of permitting anyone to see that he had normal emotions, but just the same he knew that Kamil felt the same way that he and Rip did: what had happened to the crew of the Starvenger was their mystery to be solved, and if they, couldn’t solve it before leaving the Exchange, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying.

  * * *

  Rael Cofort was considerably amused to find that the evocative name of the captain-legate’s corridor—The Way of the Rain-dappled Lilies—seemed to have originated entirely in someone’s imagination.

  There were certainly no lilies in sight, rain-dappled or otherwise.

  In fact, she thought as she paused outside the entrance-way to the legate’s quarters, hadn’t the Kanddoyd world lacked rain? She recalled reading about the race’s long battle against growing radiation from a swelling sun, and the fierce, hot, scouring winds that had driven them underground before they had finally abandoned their home and taken up life in space—one of the few races that did not live on planets. At any rate, these domiciles were all exactly alike to the human eye—plain steelplast doors set in blank walls. Only the nameplates varied; each was inscribed in three scripts, Kanddoyd, Shver, and Terran.

  The corridor was situated in what inhabitants considered a prime area, Rael knew; the front of the domicile looked out over the breathtaking curve of the habitat. Odd, she thought, the dichotomy between enclosure and exposure: it was, she knew, a constant of Kanddoyd architecture.

  "Coming, Dr. Cofort?"

  Captain Jellico’s voice interrupted her perusal of the corridor. She looked up, saw that the legate’s door was open and a diminutive Kanddoyd waited just beyond for them to enter.

  She glanced up into Jellico’s face as she walked inside, expecting impatience with her lagging behind. His mouth was pressed in its familiar noncommittal line, but there was a hint of humor in his narrowed gray eyes.

  "The honored legate welcomes sentients from his home planet with ineffable joy," the Kanddoyd said in its odd, grainy voice, while portions of its complicated carapace rubbed against other portions, making cricketlike chirrups. "If the imposing visitors from far Terra would ambulate this way?"

  The being gestured down a narrow tiled hallway, then turned and led the way, its chitinous feet clicking rhymically. As Jellico stepped behind Rael, he murmured, "I sense it’s been a while since the last Terran visited Ross."

  Rael nodded, trying not to smile. A moment later the Kanddoyd and its odd Terran vocabulary were forgotten when she stepped through into a spectacular garden straight from Terra. A flower-scented breeze wafted in her face, and she heard the sounds of birds and insects, and the hush of leaves tossing—and realized, with difficulty, that this was a masterfully done holograph.

  "Do you like it?" A quiet voice spoke from under one of the trees.

  Rael realized she had gasped. Stepping forward, she peered into the shadows just as a tall,
thin, spectral-featured man emerged into the light.

  "I have eight projectors," Ross said. He lifted an arm and waved it—and the movement cast no shadow. "Keeps the proportions correct as well. The aromas are recent additions to my air system."

  "Roses," Rael said. "Roses, jasmine, carnations. Grass."

  Ross smiled. His features reminded Rael of a sad hound dog. "I hoped I had the proportions right. Six years it has taken me to program all the details. But I really think I have the proportions right. Do you?"

  Rael looked up at Jellico, who said only, "I haven’t been dirtside on Terra for a long time."

  "I have been there more recently," Rael said, "and I really think you’ve captured the best of the gardens I’ve ever visited."

  "It’s a combination," Ross said eagerly. "I’ve seven specimens of the genus Rosa of the Rosaceae family, and that there is Epilabium angustifolium... and of course these varieties of Liliaceae..." He stopped suddenly, seemed to recall himself, and said, "Forgive me. I get enthusiastic over this hobby of mine. You are here on business. Shall we step into the office?"

  He tabbed a control hidden in the holographic shadows, and a door seemed to open in one of the trees, making the whole scene seem still more unreal.

  Once Rael stepped through, she felt that the universe had righted itself again. She found herself in a plain office, furnished simply in what was probably regulation for Patrol officers of Ross’s rank. The lighting was efficient, and there were several ordinary chairs opposite the desk. Strangely, though, Ross’s windows and view ways were completely blocked: there was no sign of the sweeping view that made outside domiciles so desirable to habitat dwellers.

  Ross sat down behind the desk, and folded his hands. "Now, how may I help you? I take it you are not here on ordinary Trade business?"

  Captain Jellico said, "Correct. We discovered an abandoned vessel on our way into the system."

  Ross said, "There are standards set for the registry and claim of salvage under the Concord of Harmony."